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3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
I am certainly becoming a big fan of Edith Wharton and was quite engrossed in this book, but as usual these days, I was very disappointed by the ending. I'm looking forward to the discussion here next week.
A flawless portrait of the economic precariousness of women and how quickly their power evaporates without the support of (the right) man. And how non-existent that support really is.
Strong 3.5
The characters, including the main one, are thoroughly unlikable. Lucy does have some redeeming qualities that shows that she’s only human but ultimately I just didn’t care as much for her. However, Wharton has a very strong style of writing that kept me flipping pages without even realizing I wasn’t always in love with everything that was going on. I look forward to reading [b:Ethan Frome|5246|Ethan Frome|Edith Wharton|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1389822254s/5246.jpg|132919] next. Hopefully it will be less bleak.
The characters, including the main one, are thoroughly unlikable. Lucy does have some redeeming qualities that shows that she’s only human but ultimately I just didn’t care as much for her. However, Wharton has a very strong style of writing that kept me flipping pages without even realizing I wasn’t always in love with everything that was going on. I look forward to reading [b:Ethan Frome|5246|Ethan Frome|Edith Wharton|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1389822254s/5246.jpg|132919] next. Hopefully it will be less bleak.
There is something about Lily Bart that sets her apart for everyone else in the novel. She is stunningly beautiful, which matters a lot to many of the men in the nouveau-riche turn-of-the-century New York society in which she lives. She is also extremely skilled in social situations and is able to understand people's inner motives, hang-ups, and intentions and use them to her advantage. As a result, many people like her and even those who don't want her around to manipulate social situations in their favor.
Both of these factors - beauty and social skill - allow her to live the life of a rich society woman, despite being nearly broke. She offers these things in return for gifts and hospitality. Despite these things though, Lily is 29 and unmarried. It becomes clear that every time she comes close to sealing the deal she sabotages herself - because part of her really doesn't like the money-focused society she lives in or see its value. In this belief, which is only semi-conscious for her, she finds a partner in Selden, who states it outright and begins to fall for Lily because she is the only other "society person" who seems to get the joke. Also did I mention she's beautiful.
Selden on Lily, early in the novel: "He was aware that the qualities distinguishing her from the herd of her sex were chiefly external: as though a fine glaze of beauty and fastidiousness had been applied to vulgar clay. Yet the analogy left him unsatisfied, for a coarse texture will not take a high finish; and was it not possible that the material was fine, but that circumstance had fashioned it into a futile shape?"
As you can imagine, Lily's lack of money coupled with her being a single woman approaching thirty begin to cause her problems - problems that she is forced to solve in less than savory ways in order to maintain her lifestyle and status. Mid-novel, Lily has "a fatalistic sense of being drawn from one wrong turning to another, without ever perceiving the right road till it was too late to take it." This is when things get interesting.
Wharton focuses on several themes in her withering description of upper class society and its tendency to honor the most selfish and flashy, and chew up and spit out everyone else.
First, there is the way that truth is manipulated. As Lily says, "What is truth? Where a woman is concerned, it's the story that's easiest to believe. In this case it's a great deal easier to believe Bertha Dorset's story than mine, because she has a big house and an opera box, and it's convenient to be on good terms with her." This is something that still resonates today, particularly in our national discussion of how people of different races and economic backgrounds are treated by the criminal justice system.
Another is the need for stability in life, and the ways in which our various societies shape us as children, then sometimes fail us rather than support us as adults. When Lily's society turns its back on her: "That was the feeling which possessed her now-the feeling of being something rootless and ephemeral, mere spindrift of the whirling surface of existence, without anything to which the poor little tentacles of self could cling before the awful flood submerged them."
Occasionally in the novel, Lily comes in contact with young women of the lower classes. These are women who must work for a living and are surviving well enough but have none of the fancy things she has, no extra money, and no elaborate social calendar. It is one of these women who gives Lily a glimpse of what a truly satisfying and happy life could be: "The poor little working-girl who had found strength to gather up the fragments of her life, and build herself a shelter with them, seemed to Lily to have reached the central truth of existence."
Lily knows that this woman who has very little, has something she does not: stability. She compares the "shelter" this woman has built to a bird nest on a cliff. It's a safe haven to be at peace and raise a family, protected from the dangers just outside its walls.
Themes: women, society, New York, 1900, class issues, identity, stability, moral integrity
Both of these factors - beauty and social skill - allow her to live the life of a rich society woman, despite being nearly broke. She offers these things in return for gifts and hospitality. Despite these things though, Lily is 29 and unmarried. It becomes clear that every time she comes close to sealing the deal she sabotages herself - because part of her really doesn't like the money-focused society she lives in or see its value. In this belief, which is only semi-conscious for her, she finds a partner in Selden, who states it outright and begins to fall for Lily because she is the only other "society person" who seems to get the joke. Also did I mention she's beautiful.
Selden on Lily, early in the novel: "He was aware that the qualities distinguishing her from the herd of her sex were chiefly external: as though a fine glaze of beauty and fastidiousness had been applied to vulgar clay. Yet the analogy left him unsatisfied, for a coarse texture will not take a high finish; and was it not possible that the material was fine, but that circumstance had fashioned it into a futile shape?"
As you can imagine, Lily's lack of money coupled with her being a single woman approaching thirty begin to cause her problems - problems that she is forced to solve in less than savory ways in order to maintain her lifestyle and status. Mid-novel, Lily has "a fatalistic sense of being drawn from one wrong turning to another, without ever perceiving the right road till it was too late to take it." This is when things get interesting.
Wharton focuses on several themes in her withering description of upper class society and its tendency to honor the most selfish and flashy, and chew up and spit out everyone else.
First, there is the way that truth is manipulated. As Lily says, "What is truth? Where a woman is concerned, it's the story that's easiest to believe. In this case it's a great deal easier to believe Bertha Dorset's story than mine, because she has a big house and an opera box, and it's convenient to be on good terms with her." This is something that still resonates today, particularly in our national discussion of how people of different races and economic backgrounds are treated by the criminal justice system.
Another is the need for stability in life, and the ways in which our various societies shape us as children, then sometimes fail us rather than support us as adults. When Lily's society turns its back on her: "That was the feeling which possessed her now-the feeling of being something rootless and ephemeral, mere spindrift of the whirling surface of existence, without anything to which the poor little tentacles of self could cling before the awful flood submerged them."
Occasionally in the novel, Lily comes in contact with young women of the lower classes. These are women who must work for a living and are surviving well enough but have none of the fancy things she has, no extra money, and no elaborate social calendar. It is one of these women who gives Lily a glimpse of what a truly satisfying and happy life could be: "The poor little working-girl who had found strength to gather up the fragments of her life, and build herself a shelter with them, seemed to Lily to have reached the central truth of existence."
Lily knows that this woman who has very little, has something she does not: stability. She compares the "shelter" this woman has built to a bird nest on a cliff. It's a safe haven to be at peace and raise a family, protected from the dangers just outside its walls.
Themes: women, society, New York, 1900, class issues, identity, stability, moral integrity
Why they'd have high school kids read this, I don't understand. Also if blatant anti-Semitism isn't your jam, skim over the descriptions of Simon Rosedale.
Beautifully written, and all the more infuriating for it. Not even Wharton's prose can ever convince me that physical beauty is a virtue and that materialism isn't a vice.
Oh this novel gave me all the feels. Lily Bart is perhaps one of the most tragic heroines I've ever read about, and her story is almost relentlessly brutal. Given its age, thematically this is a surprisingly current novel. Lily's journey is one of a battle against social expectation- although she so desperately wants to remain a part of the social circle she is raised in she cannot bring herself to marry. Wharton's real skill is in capturing the pervasive nature of gossip, and in demonstrating how, once tainted by it, it is so difficult to restore a reputation. The people in Lily's world are judgemental, easily taken in by a story and ultimately unforgiving. This was an excellent but bleak read.
I was not sure about this book at first. I was not terribly in love with Wharton's Ethan Frome. But the introduction of The House of Mirth comes out and says that Wharton did not understand country-dwellers very well, so created a very flat piece.
That being said, House of Mirth was in no way flat. The beautiful use of language (both English and French) paints a detailed picture of the rich life of New York City at the turn of the century. Lily Bart, the heroine, flourishes in the lifestyle of the lavish: evening parties, wealthy friends, holidays in Europe. She is getting on in age and knows she must marry. This woman is no fool, however. She has a way of binding others to her will, and plans on using her charm to marry an affluent man. However, she begins to learn that misery reaches even those who are elevated and have the best-laid plans.
Miss Bart, with the trust of Gus Trenor, invests her money in the stock market. Little does she know that this act will put her in a haunting debt to Gus. This, among a rumor of adultery perpetuated by her "friend" Bertha Dorset, will be the downfall of Lily.
Miss Bart begins to lose her "set" of wealthy acquaintances, and with her strong independence refuses the help of Lawrence Selden, Sim Rosedale, and her remaining friends. The reader watches helplessly as Lily falls from class to class, becoming a milliner's helper and being forced to live in shabby quarters. Her downfall ultimately ends in tragedy, as insinuated in the introduction, and we see that the great struggle between (wo)man and society continues on, even to this day.
That being said, House of Mirth was in no way flat. The beautiful use of language (both English and French) paints a detailed picture of the rich life of New York City at the turn of the century. Lily Bart, the heroine, flourishes in the lifestyle of the lavish: evening parties, wealthy friends, holidays in Europe. She is getting on in age and knows she must marry. This woman is no fool, however. She has a way of binding others to her will, and plans on using her charm to marry an affluent man. However, she begins to learn that misery reaches even those who are elevated and have the best-laid plans.
Miss Bart, with the trust of Gus Trenor, invests her money in the stock market. Little does she know that this act will put her in a haunting debt to Gus. This, among a rumor of adultery perpetuated by her "friend" Bertha Dorset, will be the downfall of Lily.
Miss Bart begins to lose her "set" of wealthy acquaintances, and with her strong independence refuses the help of Lawrence Selden, Sim Rosedale, and her remaining friends. The reader watches helplessly as Lily falls from class to class, becoming a milliner's helper and being forced to live in shabby quarters. Her downfall ultimately ends in tragedy, as insinuated in the introduction, and we see that the great struggle between (wo)man and society continues on, even to this day.
All I can say is that this book is some good shit. Everything I could wish for. Amazing. Phenomenal. Beautiful. Fantastic. That's all you need to know.